Women Empowerment: The Role of Microfinance. A Case Study of Ibadan Market Women in Nigeria

The economic and social development of every country will probably be achieved if every government and policy maker takes into consideration women economic empowerment as an integral part of policy formulation. Previous studies, conducted mainly in Asian countries (rural areas) have shown that women’s economic empowerment is associated with access to microfinance with little or no studies on the urban settlement. However, there are still contentious academic debates on the validity of the issue. This study assessed women economic empowerment: role of microfinance in Oyo state, Nigeria (using sample area of local markets located in Bodija, Agbeni,Oje and Ojoo in Ibadan Metropolis). The study employed deductive and quantitative research techniques where primary data was gather from the field using 200 sample size. The data collected was analysed with SPSS and hypothesis formulated were tested. The results of the study reveal that there are no significant improvement in financial inclusion, economic empowerment and household well-being of the women given their access to microfinance. Thus, based on the results, it is highly recommended that the policy of microfinance in Nigeria needs to be reviewed in order to achieve the set out goals and depart from the shadow of the defunct Community Banks.

Page :  227-243

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Determination of Chloroquine in Some Pharmaceutical Preparations Using High Performance Liquid Chromatography

Pharmaceutical products must conform to the formulation and industrial standards. For an overall quality assessment of drugs various analytical methods are applied like statistical methods, physicochemical methods, biological methods and biopharmaceutical methods. High performance liquid chromatographic machine was used to determined chloroquine phosphate in pharmaceutical preparations. The results obtained shows Chloroquine in Malarivon syrup 97 ± 0.1%, Malarivon tablet 99 ± 0.3%, Lagaquine syrup 96 ± 0.1%, Lagaquine table 98 ± 0.2%. The percentage content of chloroquine determined in those drugs by the method employed showed conformity with the British pharmacopoeia requirement. The percentage of chloroquine determine in each drug shows that the co-formulations of chloroquine with some other drugs in pharmaceutical preparations does not affect its percentage in the preparation. The precision of the method did not exceed 1.8% (n=6) within-run, and the calibration curve was linear from 100 to 500 µg/ml, with a correlation coefficient, r=0.999. The article bear some recommendations and useful tips on the best laboratory practices.

Page :  244-251

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Anti-Bacterial Effect of Neem Tree (Azadirachta Indica) Leaf Extract on Staphylococcus Aureus

The research was carried out on Anti-Bacterial Effect of Neem Tree (Azadirachta Indica) Leaf Extractson Staphylococcus aureus. Ethanol and aqueous extracts of leaves and barks of Azadirachta indica (Neem) were tested against Staphylococcus aureus which are known to be resistant to various antibiotics. Previously, minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) was determined according (Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute and Sufian et al. 2013), where 2-fold dilution series with the Neem extractat concentrations ranging from 250 to 2000 mg/mL in a 96-well plate was performed. MIC was defined as the lowest concentration of Neem extract that restricted bacterial growth of S. aureus strains in the culture media. Then the effect of sub-inhibitory concentrations of Neem extracts was evaluated following Xiao et al. (2007) and Hochbaum et al. (2011), with adaptations. Strains were grown in 96-well plates with Tryptic Soy Broth with 0.5% of glucose and Neem extracts at concentrations of 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 MIC. After 24 hours, the wells were rinsed with saline solution and the cells that remained adhered in the wells were fixed with methanol P.A. for 10 min. After removal of the methanol, wells were stained with 100 mL of 0.1% Crystal Violet dye for 5 min, rinsed twice with distilled water, and thoroughly air-dried under ambient conditions. For biofilm adherence quantification, 100 mL of ethanol (95%) was added to the CV-stained wells for 30 min. The resulting solutions were transferred to other 96-well plates, and their absorbance (A) was measured at 595 nm. This assay was performed in quadruplicate. The percentage of inhibition was calculated using the equation: (1 A595 of the test/A595 of non-treated (control) 100. Data were expressed as mean±SD (standard deviation) and evaluated using oneway analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by Dunnett's multiple comparison test using GraphPad Prism 5.0. *po0.05 or ***po0.001 was considered statistically significant, compared to the control group consisting of a non-treated control biofilm.

Page :  252-256

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Mycological Assessment of some Packaged Yoghurt sold in Damaturu

Drinks of all kinds must satisfied certain nutritional and aesthetic conditions for consumers, especially those with high percent of moisture which favoured the growth of microorganisms. Mycological quality of some commercially packaged yoghurt sold in Damaturu was determined by enumerating yeasts and moulds from 12 batches of randomly selected yoghurt brands from 6 manufacturers. The pH readings of the samples were recorded and correlated with yeasts and moulds counts. The result shows that pH recorded and it ranges from 4.58-6.36. Heavy contaminated was detected in 3 samples (25%) with yeast count of greater than 104 cfu/ml. Moderate contamination was detected in 5 samples (41.7%) with yeast count less than 103 cfu/ml and low counts was detected in 4 samples (33.23%) with yeast count less than which was observed for the moderate samples. Generally, the findings from the results showed an unacceptably high level of yeast and mould contamination in most of the commercial yoghurts sold in Damaturu. Moreover, the result of correlation analysis indicates a negative relationship between the pH levels, yeast and mould counts. The work also list some recommendations to improve better yoghurt production.

Page :  257-266

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AN OVERVIEW OF AFRICAN ECONOMIC CRISIS: THE EFFECTS OF STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT PROGRAMME (SAP) IN NIGERIA

The paper is designed to research into the general overview of African economic crisis specifically the effects of Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in Nigeria. And how SAP as an economic reform measure designed to achieve recovery, restructuring and growth in addressing Nigeria’s economic crisis compounded the situation. Dependency theory was adopted as framework of analysis. Therefore, the paper relied mainly on the secondary sources of data collection. The result shows that the Nigeria economy is not total under the control of Nigerians. With this reality, the Nigerian state cannot embark on policies that can fundamentally restructure the Nigeria’s economy for a proper development, given the pervasive imperfections and market failure in Nigeria, certain forms of selective intervention by government might be necessary in order to stimulate industrial growth and achieve international competitiveness. Likely areas of intervention would be aggressive export promotion, technology capacity building, infrastructure and institution building. Such intervention should be a home grown vision of Nigeria economic reform in line with our internal environmental factors.

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